Family Vacation 2012

It's no secret that I like to see new things.  I especially like to see new things with my kids and I love this nation that we live in and all the history there is here.  This year for our vacation we decided to take the kids to see Mt. Rushmore.  Since it is such a long drive, we knew we would be able to see many sights along the way.  We planned out our trip and then realized that we had packed too much into it so we cut out a state and some sights and narrowed it down more.  Then it felt manageable to us and we shared with the kids where we would be going.  I admit that a few of them said "What?  That sounds boring".  Maybe so.  There is this blog that I read (71toes.blogspot.com) and one of her posts was about these reports that her kids did about the places they were going to visit before a trip that they took.  I thought it was such a great idea that I presented it to the kids and they said okay.  So they each picked two places out of the ones we would go to and researched them, printed off pictures of them, and either wrote a report or made a poster and we shared them at FHE the week before we left.  I think it gave them ownership on the vacation and they were able to be invested in the experience more.

First state to visit: Wyoming

Wyoming State Capitol

Martin's Cove

Devil's Gate

pulling the handcart

Independence Rock....which looks more like a big cowpie, but oh well

Devil's Tower

playing on the rocks at the bottom

Second state to visit: South Dakota

Meghan with statue of President Taft in Rapid City, SD
This city is known as the city of the Presidents because they have they statues of all the Presidents on the street corners in their downtown district.  You can walk around on a marked tour and see them all.  It is pretty cool.

Hall of Flags at Mt. Rushmore

Crazy Horse Monument

This is the model of what it will look like someday with the real one in the background

Third state to visit: Nebraska

Mike and I at Chimney Rock

We stayed the night in Sidney, Nebraska and our Sidney thought it was pretty neat that there were signs everywhere with her name on them!

Fourth state to visit: Colorado

Denver Colorado LDS Temple

Colorado State Capitol

Fifth and last state that we went through: Utah!!


The kids were so excited to see that sign even though we were on the East side of the state and still had to drive halfway across it to get home!  It was a fun trip with lots of laughs and jokes and silly moments (Mike driving ON the round-about) and that is my favorite part about traveling with my family- the memories we make!